Cheap Learn to Play the Irish Bouzouki (Video) (Learn to Play the Irish Bouzouki) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Learn to Play the Irish Bouzouki

Not for Beginners
The artist and the music are excellent, but if you do not have some solid experience in the various tunings of stringed instruments, chord formations/variations, and strumming patterns, this video may not be for you. If you learn best by sitting down with someone who plays an example and then basically says, "That's how you do it," then you will have no problem learning from this video. If you need very logical, stepwise, and systematically broken down instruction (as I do), then this video may do nothing more than heighten your desire to one day learn to play like the guy in the video. You may still want to buy this video, however, for, besides a few books, it is just about all I could find out there about learning to play the bouzouki (including trying to find someone who gives face-to-face lessons in my area), and I at least needed to watch someone play and hear examples of popular tunes.

---

Time well spent
I really enjoy this tape. I've had it a few months now and get something useful from it every time I watch it. The tape teaches you a few different accompaniment techniques that can be applied to almost any Irish tune. As you learn these techniques, Zan McLeod, the instructor, also explains why he's doing things so once you learn his way, you'll have an understanding of Irish music that will help you begin to develop an individual style. BTW: The techniques, while they do take practice, are not particularly hard to learn. They're interesting and elaborate enough that, once you do learn them, they won't sound like "beginner" arrangements, so you won't be embarassed to play them in public.
Like any musical instruction, you won't progress without practice. But, I think the real value of instructional material is how well it returns a user's effort. By this I mean, if someone puts the necessary time into learning the material, once they've learned it will they feel as if the effort has been worthwhile. Because this tape has given me such a good start playing the 'zook and a good foundation to move forward with my playing, I feel I received a great return for my effort. The time, and money, were well spent. I don't think this would be a good place to start for absolute newbie to string instruments. I would sugggest taking some lessons with an instructor before taking this on. If no Irish Bouzouki instructor is available, a good guitar or mandolin teacher may be able to get you off to a good start.